Chapter 13 - Evelyn
The DNA results arrived five days later.
Probability of biological relationship:
99.82 percent.
Hannah had been Evelyn’s daughter.
Lily was Thomas Carter’s grandniece as well as his granddaughter through marriage.
The legal implications were complicated.
The emotional implications were worse.
But Rebecca had already found Evelyn.
Margaret’s private investigator had succeeded months earlier.
He located her living outside Portland, Maine.
Seventy years old.
Retired librarian.
Widowed.
No other children.
Margaret knew where she was.
She simply never told anyone.
Daniel called.
A woman answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
Daniel nearly hung up.
Instead he said, “Is this Evelyn Monroe?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
“My name is Daniel Carter.”
Nothing.
Then a sharp inhale.
“Thomas’s son?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why are you calling me?”
He looked at Lily sitting beside him.
“Because I married your daughter.”
The line became completely silent.
Daniel heard a faint sound.
Then Evelyn whispered, “Hannah?”
Daniel’s voice broke.
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
He could not answer immediately.
Evelyn understood before he said it.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“She died nine years ago.”
Evelyn began crying.
Not loudly.
That made it worse.
Daniel held the phone while a woman he had never met mourned a daughter whose death had been hidden from her almost a decade.
Then Lily took the phone.
“Evelyn?”
The crying stopped.
“Who is this?”
“My name is Lily.”
Another silence.
“Hannah was my mother.”
Evelyn made a sound Daniel would remember for the rest of his life.
Not grief.
Not joy.
Both.
“You’re my granddaughter?”
Lily began crying too.
“Yes.”
Three days later, Evelyn arrived at Daniel’s house.
She stepped from the car carrying one suitcase.
She was small.
Silver-haired.
Her eyes were Hannah’s.
Daniel nearly lost his balance when he saw them.
Lily froze on the porch.
Evelyn looked at her.
Then covered her mouth.
“You have her smile.”
Lily crossed the yard.
They embraced.
Neither spoke for several minutes.
Daniel watched from the porch.
For the first time since Hannah died, something inside him felt less empty.
That evening, Evelyn brought out a photograph.
It showed her at twenty-three holding a newborn Hannah.
On the back were four words.
My daughter. My whole future.
Lily traced the handwriting.
“Why did Grandma Margaret hate you?”
Evelyn looked toward Daniel.
“She didn’t.”
Daniel frowned.
“What?”
Evelyn’s eyes darkened.
“She was afraid of me.”
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“Why?”
“Because I knew what she did before she married Thomas.”
